Postal
by WeasleyWannabee
Summary: Modern AU. Lily and Marlene keep getting mail for some bloke called James Potter. While Marlene tries to guess the identity of the mysterious stranger, Lily would rather focus on the cute neighbor she keeps running into in their building.


"We got James Potter's mail again," Marlene announces as she enters the flat, tossing her keys in the bowl they kept on a small table by the door.

"Again?" her flatmate Lily calls from the kitchen. Wiping her hands on a towel and taking up a knife to begin chopping vegetables for dinner, she adds, "You know, I think the postman might be doing it on purpose, just for his own entertainment."

"Or because he fancies me getting together with Potter as well," Marlene says with a wink, leaning against the counter opposite Lily and snatching up a slice of carrot.

"Oi, that's for the stew, not a snack," Lily protests, rolling her eyes when Marlene only shoots her a cheeky grin and pops another carrot in her mouth. "And I've only ever heard you complain that James is immune to your charms."

"He's a bloke, though, he can't be immune to all bits of me," Marlene says, doing a little shimmy in place in demonstration.

"Mmm, you're right—so charming," Lily deadpans. "How could he possibly resist?"

"I'm just as nonplussed as you, Lil," Marlene says with a grin. "Anyway," she adds, tapping the envelopes with James Potter's name and address on them, "he wasn't in when I popped up there just now, and I'm off for Paris early tomorrow so I'm afraid you'll have the lovely task of delivering them this time."

"Really?" Lily asks with mock surprise. "You're actually going to allow _me_ to play delivery girl for once?"

" _Just_ once," Marlene warns. "Don't let it go to your head." Taking up one of the envelopes, she holds it to the light, squinting as she strives to see through to its contents.

"Marlene," Lily sighs, adding the freshly chopped vegetables to the stew.

"What?" she asks innocently. "It's not a crime to snoop through other people's mail."

"It is, actually," Lily says dryly.

"Well, nothing exciting this time, anyway," her friend says. "Just a couple of bills from the looks of it."

"Good—then you can concentrate on helping me with dinner instead," Lily says, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

With a long-suffering sigh, Marlene slumps off of her stool to join Lily at the stove.

The following morning, Lily rushes straight past the envelopes on the counter, already running late for work and with no extra time to stop by Potter's flat. She hurries out the front door of her building with barely a glance at the tall young man in running shorts stretching near the entrance, only registering who it is when he calls after her, "Thought I'd missed you this morning."

Lily half turns but doesn't slow as he jogs to catch up to her, slinging a pair of earbuds over his shoulder. "Well _I_ missed setting my alarm last night, apparently," she replies with a frustrated sigh.

Easily keeping pace with Lily's quick steps, her companion wrinkles his nose in sympathy. "I hate it when that happens. Of course," he goes on after a brief pause, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't purposefully take my time on the stairs just now."

Ignoring this as well as the smirk he shoots her, Lily replies, "You don't seem like the type to have trouble waking up in the morning. I've yet to see you miss your morning run, anyway." This is, indeed, the reason they'd started chatting in the first place. After repeatedly finding that he left the building around the same time as Lily, and after discovering that his routine jogging path ran alongside Lily's route to her bus stop, he'd started walking with her. Their conversations never delved into anything beyond trivialities such as work and the weather—she didn't even know his name—but Lily often found herself looking forward to them nevertheless. Marlene, although she had never met the man, insisted that this was because Lily found him exceedingly attractive. And while it _was_ true that he was quite fit, Lily had stubbornly refused to give in to her mate's teasing.

"I doubt I'd have the resolve to get up for a jog before…whatever it is you go on to do," Lily continues, eyeing the young man beside her interestedly. Though she'd related plenty of stories about some of her more frustrating coworkers to him, she had yet to work out what occupied the rest of his day after they parted ways.

As expected, however, he evades her implied question, ruffling his already untidy black hair in what Lily has discovered is a recurring habit before replying, "I suppose it's just routine, now." Though Lily frowns at his somewhat curious phrasing, he adds nothing further.

"So, what have you—" she starts.

"Isn't that your bus?" the man from her building interrupts, frowning.

Eyes snapping forward, Lily utters an emphatic, "Dammit," starting to sprint although she knows it's futile. But her companion has begun running as well and, easily outstripping Lily, catches the bus just as it's about to pull away. Lily sees the doors open and the young man exchanges a few words with the driver, gesturing back at Lily. She reaches him with a breathless, "Thank you—I owe you one."

"Don't worry about it—have a good day at work. Cheers, mate," he adds to the disgruntled driver before putting in his headphones and jogging away.

That evening, just as Lily is about to start preparing for bed, she remembers the undelivered mail still sitting on her kitchen counter. Sighing loudly, she retraces her steps to the outer room, chewing on her lip for a moment as she debates what to do. On the one hand, it's nearly eleven and it's possible she'd be disturbing Potter by giving him his letters. But then again, Marlene had suspected they were bills, and she'd hate to be the reason he paid them late. Making up her mind, she slides her feet into a pair of Marlene's flats sitting by the door, grabs her keys and the envelopes, and climbs the stairs to flat ten. After knocking on the door, she shifts impatiently from foot to foot, shivering slightly in the drafty hallway. But when it opens, she freezes instantly, finding herself at a loss for words.

"Hello," says the man who most certainly cannot be James Potter after a beat of silence, sounding both taken aback and pleased. He cannot be James Potter because that would mean James Potter is the man who has been walking Lily to the bus for over a month.

Lily opens her mouth, but can't seem to make anything resembling coherent speech come out. She's suddenly very aware that she's dressed in pajamas, and perhaps it's desperation to distract herself from this fact that causes her to blurt, "You wear specs."

"What? Oh, yeah," James Potter replies, fiddling briefly with the frames as those he's forgotten they're currently perched on his nose. "I tried lenses for a while, but I couldn't stand sticking my finger in my eyes every morning, so…" He touches his glasses again. "It's lucky I planned out my route before I first went running around here, or I might never have made it back, blind as I am without these. I can also see now that I've been vastly underestimating how pretty you are."

Unable to find a suitable response to this unexpected non sequitur, Lily hands James his mail, mutters a quiet, "Here—sorry they keep mixing it up," and turns to leave.

Staring at the letters in momentary confusion, James doesn't immediately follow her. Soon, however, she hears him scrambling down the stairs, but doesn't stop even as he calls a hurried, "Hang on," after her. It's so incredibly ironic that the cute neighbor Marlene has been pursuing is the very same man Lily's fancied from afar. In all their years as friends, they'd never fought over a bloke, mostly because of their vastly disparate taste in men. And Lily is determined not to reverse that pattern now.

But as he had that morning, James overtakes her without trouble, planting a hand on either side of the railings and forcing Lily to come to an abrupt stop to avoid running into him. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean—I wasn't flirting with you, if that's what upset you." Closing his eyes with a wince, he rushes on, "Well, all right, I _was_ flirting, but that's only because I'm a prick and you should just ignore most of what I say."

"It's fine," Lily says, mostly to get him to let her past. But she can't help wondering why he seems so keen to patch up what couldn't be considered a relationship even in the most rudimentary form of the word.

"Right," James says after a long silence. "Sorry," he repeats as he moves aside to give Lily room to pass him. "I'll see you tomorrow," he adds as she continues down the next set of stairs, the sentence ending with a hint of a question.

Lily merely waves vaguely over her shoulder, desperate to return to the safety of her flat.

" _James Potter_ is Cute Jogging Bloke?" Marlene asks, mouth hanging open almost comically.

It's been three days since Lily's realization of this fact herself, and she's successfully managed to avoid further encounters with the man in question by leaving fifteen minutes earlier for work each morning. "I honestly thought that perhaps you'd played a very bad joke on me at first," Lily replies, face heating up at the thought of how she must have appeared standing outside James's door the other night. Much as Marlene looks now, probably.

"What are you going to do?" Marlene asks once she's regained composure.

Lily shrugs. "Try to dodge him forever?" she offers, attempting a smile.

But Marlene is shaking her head before Lily even finishes speaking. "No. No you won't. I'm not going to let you do that, not if it's for my sake, as I very much suspect it is. You know me better than almost anyone, Lily, you _know_ this…thing between Potter and me is nothing more than a diversion." Her try for a smile nearly as weak as Lily's, she continues, "An excuse not to answer emails from work in the evenings. And I haven't been lying to you—it's been completely one-sided."

"It's all right, Marls—as little as you and James might have had, he and I certainly have far less. Plus, there's still the potential girlfriend to consider. So it doesn't matter. We can just slip his mail under his door from now on. Or you can go on delivering it as usual," she adds quickly. "It wouldn't bother me, truly."

"I know it wouldn't. But never talking to him again might," she says, voice uncharacteristically gentle. When Lily doesn't answer, she sighs softly. "At least think about it, yeah?"

"I will," Lily promises, mostly to appease her friend.

But her decision is unexpectedly made for her the following morning. As she leaves her flat for work, early again, she nearly exclaims aloud in shock at the sight of James Potter leaning against the opposite wall, running clothes on as usual but wearing a rare frown. "You've been avoiding me," he accuses as he pushes himself upright and takes a few steps closer to Lily.

"I haven't," she replies, immediately defensive against what is the embarrassing truth. "I've just had to work early the past few days, that's all." Moving down the stairs, she's unsurprised when James follows.

"And will this be a permanent thing, having to work early?" James persists, undoubtedly seeing right through Lily's lie. "I know it might seem silly that I'm making so much of this," he says when only silence meets his words. "Perhaps even, er, a bit mad." His hand jumps to his hair as he says this, and Lily has the sudden realization that it's not only a habit but a nervous one, and that it's _she_ who is making him so. "But the truth is, I like talking to you. And even though it's just a few minutes each day, I'd miss it if it stopped. I _have_ missed it, in fact," he adds, cheeks reddening at this but watching Lily determinedly nonetheless.

Again, Lily is quiet for a long time. At last, she astonishes even herself by saying, "I've missed it, too." Relief spreads over James's face, and a smile starts at the corners of his mouth until Lily asks suspiciously, "How long were you outside my door, anyway?"

The color in James's cheeks deepens. "I'd rather not say," he says with a stab at a dignified tone.

"Fair enough," Lily allows, smiling slightly.

"So. You're the one who keeps stealing my mail, hmm?" James begins conversationally when they reach the ground floor.

"Mmm, yes, I hide and wait for the post every afternoon and snatch what I can from the postman. Very interesting things I've learned about you, too." She eyes him slyly, and James grins.

"Such as?"

"Well, they stamp the late bill notices right on the envelope, so I know you're occasionally late paying your electric bill." She shakes her head in solemn disappointment, making a _tsking_ sound in the back of her throat.

"Guilty as charged," James admits easily. Chuckling, he adds, "Bit of a pun, that, wasn't it?"

Rolling her eyes at the bad joke, Lily continues, "But I don't think you've ever been late on your rent, so I suppose there's some hope for you yet."

"I'd like to think so." He waves his hand at her to go on. "What else?"

"You're quite into football—I'm not sure it's healthy to subscribe to three different magazines on it. But then I suppose they could have been of a much more…personal nature—" Potter laughs—"so all around not a bad obsession."

James looks at her incredulously. "Not bad?" he repeats. "Don't tell me you dislike football. I might have to discontinue these little chats after all."

"I have nothing against it," Lily supplies, but the shrewd look James sends her way tells her he suspects she's hiding something behind her vague answer.

Nevertheless, he doesn't comment on it, saying instead, "I used to play, actually—for Aston Villa? But then I banged up my knee at a match, and…" he shrugs, the smile he sends her intended to indicate a nonchalant attitude towards the event. But the expression doesn't come as easily as it usually does, and Lily has the sense that his accident had devastated him greatly.

"That explains the running, then," she says, going along with his attempt to keep the conversation light. "And your—" But she flushes, as she'd been about to say 'body'. _Marlene must be rubbing off on me_. To cover her blunder, she says instead, "I'm Lily, by the way. Lily Evans." She extends a hand across and he shakes it sideways.

"Lily Evans," he echoes, saying the words slowly as though trying them out. Nodding, "Much better than the names I invented for you."

"You invented names for me?" Lily says with a laugh.

"I'm declining to share that information as well," James warns. By now they have reached her bus stop, but James makes no move to start on his run as he'd usually have done.

"No, I wasn't going to ask, I just never thought to do the same for you. Marlene and I just call you Cute Jogging Bloke."

"So you _do_ find me attractive," James says triumphantly, smirking in amusement as Lily blushes harder.

"I'm declining to share that information," she says, copying his earlier words and earning another laugh from James.

"All right. We'll go back to the original topic—all the intimate details you've learned about me from my post."

"That was basically it. You're not very exciting," Lily teases. "Oh, except…" She pauses, wondering if it would be overstepping to mention the information Marlene had found most interesting, and to which Lily has secretly wanted an answer as well. "You might be seeing someone called Rose? At least, she always draws hearts by your name on the address."

"Ah, well, you're only partially right there," James says. "We split up about two weeks ago."

"Oh," Lily says, mortified. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried…"

"Nah, it's fine. We hadn't been together that long when she moved to the States. We tried the long distance thing for a bit, but it didn't work out."

"Well, I'm sorry anyway. It's never fun to end a relationship."

"No," James says. A moment later he asks in what is clearly meant to be an offhand tone, "Do you have a boyfriend, then?"

Lily has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the obvious intention behind his words. "Not at the moment."

"Excellent. Because I'd like to take you to a football match sometime."

"Yeah? I've actually never been to one."

James's eyebrows shoot up in disbelief at this. "Then I am absolutely taking you to a match. Tomorrow. You've got no choice in the matter, in fact. Especially since your bus is approaching." He nods down the street with a grin.

Lily narrows her eyes. "You should know that it's only due to that fact that I'm agreeing."

"I'll keep that in mind when I ask you on future dates. See you tomorrow, Evans."

Turning on the bottom stair of the bus, Lily replies in the same teasing tone, "Indeed you will, Potter."


End file.
